15 Best Smartphones of All Time

Palm Treo 650 (2005)

It was all about the five-way navigator. A comfy D-pad underneath the Treo 650’s 2.5-inch screen, combined with a comfy keyboard, made this follow-up to the Treo 600 my favorite smartphone for nearly two years. Other welcome features on this Sprint communicator included a top-mounted ringer switch, a relatively high-res display (320 x 320 pixels), Bluetooth and Microsoft Exchange support. I also loved how fast the Blazer browser was for Web surfing, aided by a 312-MHz Intel CPU. The VGA camera wasn’t the sharpest at the time, but it took fairly clear photos.

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptop Mag and Tom's Guide, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.

But, you are right that there are a lot of very definitive smartphones that aren’t there… The Sony Ericsson’s for example (used in James Bond, Tomb Raider and more) were pretty definitive in their time. Other Nokia’s like the 5800 XpressMusic, while not the best screen, boasted some pretty sweet features, like Opera browser, store and possibly still one of the best speakers on a phone ever. Notwithstanding some amazing phones, it’s a strange and ignorant selection…